Ewe, ios7, hurl

Errr no! Apple implements a feature that has been on jailbroken iPhones since before Android was even released (which Android then stole of course, like everything else).

More like the Apple jailbreakers and Android devs implemented a feature that was already in Palm OS (and iirc open source by june/nov 2007), which is where just about every feature in Android came from (if not various Linux implementations). Jailbreakers were in pretty sharpish iirc (mainly to steal cut+paste from every single other phone that had ever been released ), so very likely they got it in in those intervening 4 months.
Then Apple played catchup?

I was thinking that would be the case, but was actively avoiding having to do it. As last time I synced via wire, for some reason, iOS decided to empty all my apps out of the meticulously arranged folders.

I think in some respects its actually faster but I havn't played with it extensively. It is very slow the first time it opens something but thats always the case anyway.

I found the phone pretty slow before the update to the point of annoyance. I was expecting it to be much worse but so far I would say it is fine. Its a whole lot lighter than 6 was and fresher all round. I say go for it.

Just for balance one of the reasons I really didn't like it was because I am a bit of an android fanboi. I had to start using the 4 after drowning my HTC Sensation and it felt like a massive downgrade in every respect apart from battery life.

More like the Apple jailbreakers and Android devs implemented a feature that was already in Palm OS (and iirc open source by june/nov 2007), which is where just about every feature in Android came from (if not various Linux implementations). Jailbreakers were in pretty sharpish iirc (mainly to steal cut+paste from every single other phone that had ever been released ), so very likely they got it in in those intervening 4 months.
Then Apple played catchup?

Didn't Windows Mobile start a lot of this too?

The old XDA development community was always releasing various "ROMs" to update Windows Mobile devices. This development seems to have been carried over to Android now.

HTC were pretty active too, making most of the devices and "skins" over the top of the (pretty awful) Windows OS. In fact their Android devices still look a little like the old Windows Mobile days.

Mine (14) had set hers to update overnight and was demo'ing it to me at 6:45 this morning. #bloodyteenagers

Teenager Fail, should she not be dead to the world until at least the last possible minute before going to school?

I have a very nice picture of a Hedgehog as wallpaper on my iPad. Since updating to ios7 the hedgehogs nose is obscured by the large buttons at the bottom of the screen. The icons are all much bigger, obscuring lots of the hedgehogs prickles. That is a shame as i like that hedgehog.

I gather that, as well as the parallax effect, there is also new "dynamic" wallpaper. All sounds like a great way to eat battery life to me

I'm sure that Apple implemented that in a similar way to Android (or the HTC/Samsung variations thereof), and that the dynamic bit is only active when you're physically using the device (backdrops and gadgets). 99% of the time the device is sat in a pocket, locked, doing naff all, totally idle. Of course Android stole dynamic backdrops and widgets/gadgets from a combination of Windows and an array of user interfaces commonly used with Linux.

the dynamic bit is only active when you're physically using the device

Of course. That would be the obvious way to do it (no stealing about it, it's just the obvious engineering solution. Like turning the light out in a fridge when you close the door).

BUT.. it still means when you have the phone open at a menu screen then rather than the CPU sitting practically idle, clocked back and drawing very little power, it is instead monitoring movement, working out parallax effects and animating dynamic wallpaper.

To my engineering mind that is a waste of battery for pointless glitz.
(But I may not be the target audience)

Installed it last night. I think the usability processes of the the interface has improved in areas ( such as task switching ), but that colour scheme is a considerable step backwards that makes a lot of things noticeably harder to read.

I've enabled bold fonts which has made fonts easier to read, but things like messaging is just so garish and bright in colour its really difficult to read I think.

If they just toned the colour saturation down a little, I think it would be a whole lot better.